Black-robe shook his head. ‘The Regrettable Men of Vespinarr, of all the people in the world, should know better. We have always been shields. That was our first and only purpose.’
Tuuran looked behind him. The alchemist was standing exactly as he had when the fight began — bemused and without a clue. The witch looked stricken and the two Taiytakei soldiers lay dead on the street, as did the man who'd killed them, the first assassin, who'd now become somehow separated from his head.
When he looked back again, the second assassin was gone too, vanished into the night. Tuuran looked at the severed hand on the street. A hand and half a forearm. Black-robe's blade, whatever it was, had cut through the bones as though they were butter.
He was breathing hard. There was a rattle in his throat. He felt dizzy and he couldn't stop looking at the hand. What kind of blade could do that? ‘You're just going to let the other one go?’ he gasped.
Black-robe looked down the street. ‘Regrettable Men,’ he said when the killer was gone. ‘From Vespinarr.’
The alchemist seemed to wake up. ‘I thought you said this Vespinarr was your friend!’
‘Vespinarr is the city where the Regrettable Men make their home. Any may buy them as any may come to Mount Solence and ask us for our blades. Such friendship is traded for jade, nothing else.’
‘Are you hurt?’ The witch was all over Bellepheros now, holding on to him, poking and prodding. Something had changed between them since the Palace of Leaves. An affection that hadn't been there before, her for him. It made Tuuran smile. Things came at the most unexpected times. He looked down. His shirt was soaked with blood and he still had a knife stuck in his chest. If he pulled it out, he had a bad feeling about what would happen next.
‘Yes, yes, I'm not hurt. Did he. . Did they. . Did they mean to kill me?’
Tuuran tried taking long deep breaths to keep the dizziness at bay. He couldn't really just stand here with two knives sticking out of him. . What was it that an Adamantine Man did? Obeyed orders, first and last and always. But obeyed whose orders? The Night Watchman. The speaker, but when there was no Night Watchman here and no speaker either? Well, he'd sworn himself to the alchemist, the next best thing, so he supposed he could die content.
The witch still only had eyes for the alchemist. ‘I'm so sorry, Belli. I thought we'd reach the eyrie before anyone even knew you were here.’ Tuuran blinked. He'd been in the middle of wondering whether his ancestors from the legion would manage to find him this far from home, caught up in another world, but Belli? Belli? All that he'd been thinking, all that stuff about duty and honour and how being knifed in the street to save the grand master of the Order of the Scales was as a good and noble a way to die as any. . and now the witch had gone and. . Belli? He started to laugh. Great heaving guffaws. Belly laughs, which only made him bleed all the more. His knees were shaking. He could barely stand.
‘What's wrong with you, man?’ snapped the alchemist.
They saw him now. Until then he'd been invisible. Invisible in the way that slaves always were. Now the witch was looking at him, horrified as though she hadn't either the first idea what to do nor any inclination to come closer. The black-robe was gentle though. He looked at each of the wounds, murmuring to himself, dismissed the one in the arm, said something about stitches over the one in the shoulder and then shook his head at the last.
‘Well,’ grunted Tuuran, ‘I could have told you that.’
‘When the knife comes out there will be a great deal of blood. You may die or you may not. Pray to your gods, slave, if you think that will help.’
‘I don't have any,’ Tuuran spat.
Black-robe nodded. He seemed to approve, not that that helped either. He looked at the witch. ‘What would you have me do?’
The witch flustered. ‘Can he walk?’ She froze, mouth open, looking back and forth as though an answer would come up to her through the night and shake her hand. The alchemist fiddled at his pouch. He drew out a dried leaf and stepped up to Tuuran, pushed black-robe gently away and eased his leaf a little way into the chest wound, beside the blade. Tuuran growled and gritted his teeth. It stung like fire.
The alchemist looked him in the eye. ‘I'm sorry, my friend. This will hurt. But better than dying, I imagine.’
‘What are you-’
‘Scream. I'm told it helps.’ Bellepheros whipped out the knife from Tuuran's chest and pushed the leaf deep in its place.
He screamed. It was like breathing liquid fire.
29
Loud enough to break mountains, the screams of an Adamantine Man. They learned it, practised it, honed it. A roar to crumble the spirits of lesser men, a howl to send pain and fear to another place so that they could go on, no matter what the damage, and do what must be done. But this pain the alchemist had given him was something else. Stronger even than him. Tuuran fell to the road. For an instant he thought he must be dead but to his surprise he was still breathing.
‘What in the name of the Righteous Ones did you do to him?’ The white witch.
‘Saved his life, that's what,’ said Bellepheros sharply. ‘Your man will have to carry him somewhere he can be cared for.’
The witch spluttered. ‘The Watcher? You're talking about an Elemental Man! If the Elemental Men say the sea lords must jump, they will jump. You're so keen to learn our ways, learn that one!’
Bellepheros snorted like a horse. ‘From what I've seen, they're hired hands like any other.’ He cocked his head at the Watcher. ‘Is that not so?’
‘The arrangement with Quai'Shu is. . unusual.’ The Watcher shrugged. Lying on the road, twisting in pain, Tuuran watched the two squaring up. It would have been funny if he wasn't in such blistering agony. He paused to refill his lungs and screamed again. The Witch stepped between them.
‘Whatever it is, he is not my man!’ She looked at Tuuran. He couldn't read her face in the gloom, couldn't tell whether he was seeing pity and compassion or whether she just wanted to leave him to die in the street and get away.
The alchemist shrugged. ‘Well I can't lift him and neither can you, and your other men appear to be dead. Should we just stand here and shout for help then?’ Tuuran watched, blurry-eyed, as the alchemist peered over his nose at the black-robe. ‘And I have met your kind before, you know. It was one of you who took me. He had all sorts of strange questions that, under the circumstances, I was less than inclined to answer. Do you have questions? If you do, and I answer them, will you carry this man for me?’
Tuuran tried to move. An Adamantine Man was not carried! If an Adamantine Man couldn't walk it was because he had no legs. But the pain ran through his chest like flames, like a dragon that had him pinned to the earth. He managed to curl his fingers. Great Flame, alchemist, what have you done to me?
The witch looked at the Elemental Man. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, but by then the Watcher had Tuuran and was hoisting him over his shoulders. Tuuran heard him grunt at the effort of it. Yes, I'm heavy! So put me down! I can walk!
‘The blades were meant for your alchemist.’ The Elemental Man staggered under Tuuran's weight. ‘I was not quick enough and I would not have stopped them. Your friend owes you his life, sail-slave, but you have saved me a humiliation. I am in your debt, and those are rare words from my kind.’
In their hours together on the ship out of Furymouth the alchemist had told Tuuran how he'd been taken and Tuuran had wondered what it would be like to turn into the wind and simply blow through the air. He wondered now why the Elemental Man didn't just do that and take them both somewhere safe, but he didn't. He walked, slow, heavy steps, breathing hard under Tuuran's weight. He was warm and he smelled of sweat and seemed just like any other man.